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First, he takes a distinctive step forward in endorsing the proposal, developed by London Citizens, to use 1 per cent of the payback of the bank bailout to finance to a new system of locally based banks. The funds would be managed, as I understand it, by bodies on which major groups from civil society — trade unions, community groups — would sit. Funds would have to be invested in the local economy. This is a measure that, at once, addresses inequality of wealth (rather than just income) and offers a way of increasing democratic control over investment — without centralising investment in the hands of the state. Although New Labour has taken positive steps to introduce “asset-based welfare” (such as in the form of the Child Trust Fund), this proposal takes the struggle against wealth and power inequality into new and, for neoliberals, more disquieting territory.

Second, related to this proposal, Purnell resituates Labour politics in the context of a wider, pluralistic social movement. Rather than just bemoaning the decline of Labour Party activism, he acknowledges the enormous contribution to progressive politics of new, citizen-organising initiatives such as London Citizens. Certainly, London Citizens is quite separate from Labour, as its distinctively radical policy agenda indicates. But Purnell grasps that the spirit of dissenting civic radicalism that built Labour is very much alive and well in groups of this kind. “I imagine,” he writes, “that being at a London Citizens meeting would feel quite familiar to Keir Hardie and the trade unionists and churchgoers who founded the Labour movement.”

The point is not, of course, to absorb London Citizens into Labour politics — a forlorn hope, were Purnell foolish enough to entertain it (which he isn’t). Rather, the point is to think of Labour politics as one force on a wider terrain of progressive forces, including such organisations.

This way of looking at progressive politics marks a clear break from the elitism of New Labour. The New Labour model of progressive politics, which has some affinity with that of the earlier revisionist, Croslandite wing of the Labour Party, consists in getting well-intentioned social democratic politicians elected to high office. They then pull the levers of a centralised state machine to deliver better (more socially just) outcomes. Popular activism — except within limits clearly and narrowly defined from the centre (aka “new localism”?) — is viewed as unnecessary, if not positively dangerous.

The problem is that, without the support — and constraints — provided by wider citizen engagement and campaigning, even the most well-intentioned social-democratic elites will lack the capacity and willpower to face down powerful social interests that stand in the way of necessary reform. Purnell realises that an empowered social democracy must be rooted in a politics of movement, and not just a politics of good intentions.

Purnell’s endorsement of London Citizens also marks a welcome acceptance of pluralism. All too often, Labour has aspired to monopolise the field of progressive politics. The article suggests a picture of progressive politics in which multiple agencies push and pull, and in which the Labour Party has to earn whatever leadership role it has — and can never take it for granted.

This is all good, and necessary, stuff. But how might we take this call for renewed “vitality and vision” further?

One possibility is to broaden out our conception of just where the new citizen activism lies and the forms it can take. Purnell is absolutely right to endorse, and to celebrate, the achievements of London Citizens. But what about, say, Climate Camp? London Citizens is one important model of progressive activism, but arguably there are others, some related to vitally important issues such as climate change, that have thus far not featured much in the London Citizens agenda. (This is not a criticism of London Citizens; there is a place for division of labour.)

First, neither philanthrocapitalism nor transformative approaches to social change are monolithic. Both contain many different strands, and they engage and overlap in the middle, sometimes with positive effects and sometimes not. These various strands and hybrids have different costs and bene?ts, so rather than tilting at windmills by writing off one approach or the other, it is more useful to identify where business thinking can advance social change and where it can’t, separating out the use of business tools from the underlying ideology of the market.

Second, the hype that surrounds philanthrocapitalism runs far ahead of its ability to deliver real results. There is little hard evidence that these new approaches are any better at reducing poverty and injustice than the governments, foundations, and civil society groups that have been working away more quietly in the background for a generation and more. Yes, they get much-needed drugs, microcredit loans, solar-rechargeable light bulbs, and the like to people who really need these things, but they don’t change the social and political dynamics that deny most of the world’s population the hope of a decent life.

Third, among the reasons for these disappointing results, one seems especially important: the con?icts and trade-offs that exist between business thinking and market mechanisms on the one hand, and civil society thinking and social transformation on the other. There have always been areas of life that we deliberately protect from the narrow calculations of competition, price, pro?t, and cost — such as our families and community associations — but in the rush to privatize and commercialize social action and activity, there is a danger that these ?rewalls will be forgotten. Lasting damage can be done to society if these distinctions are eroded.

Fourth, the increasing concentration of wealth and power among philanthrocapitalists is unhealthy for democracy. When the production of public goods like health and education becomes the province of private interests, fundamental questions of accountability apply. Why should the rich and famous decide how schools are going to be reformed, or what kinds of drugs will be supplied at prices affordable to the poor, or which civil society groups get funded for their work? “I remember a day,” lamented Robert Reich in American Prospect Online, “when government collected billions of dollars from tycoons like these, and when our democratic process decided what the billions would be devoted to . . . I don’t want to sound like an ingrate or overly sentimental, but I preferred it the old way.” He has a very important point. Weak accountability is the Achilles’ heel of all systems for ?nancing social change — new or old, public or private — and philanthropy of all sorts needs to be reconfigured so that it can be more useful and supportive to long-term structural change.